Turnovers were the story Wednesday night, as the ISU women’s basketball team fell in Austin to the Texas Longhorns, 80-50.

The Cyclones (10-4, 1-2 Big 12) stuck to their game plan and defended Texas’ Tiffany Jackson tough, limiting her to just 10 points on 3-of-13 shooting, but Jackson’s 17 rebounds proved to be more than enough to help the Longhorns (7-6, 1-2) come out on top.

In addition, Iowa State turned the ball over 30 times, leading to 37 Longhorn points.

“You can’t turn the ball over 30 times against good teams, because every time we turned it over, it resulted in a basket for them,” said coach Bill Fennelly.

“That puts it on everyone else, and we just couldn’t handle the pressure.”

Iowa State’s misery continued when junior Lyndsey Medders left the first half with what Fennelly defined as back spasms. She only played 13 minutes, and never returned to the game.

Her availability for Saturday’s home game against Nebraska was not known at time of pubication.

Running the offense in Medders’ place was freshman Heather Ezell, who logged 39 minutes. Ezell finished the game with 12 points and five rebounds, but turned the ball over eight times.

Still, Fennelly said she showed a lot of courage and poise, given the position she was put in.

Junior Megan Ronhovde, who has struggled finding her shot throughout the season, logged 14 points on 4-of-5 shooting from three-point range. She added three rebounds.

“Megan can come out of this game feeling pretty good about her shot,” Fennelly said. “That was probably one of the things that was positive.”

With Jackson isolated, Texas’ Daria Mieloszynska tallied 18 points, converting on 6-of-12 shots.

The Cyclones shot just under 42 percent from the field, but converted on just 28.6 percent of their free-throw opportunities.

Texas was perfect from the charity stripe, but shot 46.5 percent from the floor.

The biggest factor, however, was all of the ISU turnovers.

“We have to coach and play better,” Fennelly said. “Most of it is mental – what kind of team do you want to be? Do you accept losing, do you accept what happened or do you go back and try and change it?”

The Cyclones bounced back from a 20-point drubbing against Oklahoma to beat Oklahoma State, and Fennelly said he expects his team to have the same mentality heading into its next practice.

“We’ve done it before, and they’ve shown a lot of maturity,” he said. “It falls on your leaders to play well, practice hard and learn from your mistakes.”

Iowa State returns to Hilton Coliseum on Saturday for a bout with Nebraska at 7 p.m.